Frog Baby
by Eileen
Summary: Does Todd have a baby brother? The Weekly World News would have you think so! Based on a real cover story that hit the stands a couple of months ago.


FROG BABY

(Disclaimer: Characters belong to Marvel/Kids WB.)

"Why do we have to do the stupid food shopping, anyway?" Pietro complained as Lance pushed the cart up the aisle. They'd only been in the store for ten minutes, and already the speed demon was bored.

"Cause Mystique's got a meeting." Lance checked the list, then scanned the aisle. How could there be twelve different kinds of peanut butter? And which one was he supposed to get?

"She could have done it on her way home."

"She said she might be late."

"So what? The store's open 24 hours!"

"Can you read this?" Lance shoved the list in his face. "What's that supposed to be?"

Pietro studied it a moment. "Looks like 'Funky Garbage ice cream'."

"What the heck's that?"

"I dunno. I'm going to check out the magazine rack."

"Fine."  Lance worked on the second half of the shopping list. He had barely gotten through frozen foods when Pietro came racing back.

"Ohmanyougottaseethis!"

"Slow down, will ya?" Lance grumbled. "You know I hate it when you talk like that!"

"C'mere, you gotta see this!" He dragged Lance and the shopping cart over to the checkout magazine stand.

"What?"

Pietro pointed to a black-and-white tabloid on the bottom rack. The _Weekly World News_, famous for their UFO sightings, insistence that Elvis was alive, and Bat Boy exclusives. Mystique had caught them reading it once, and forbidden them to bring it in the house ever again. But it was good for a laugh. "Yeah, so?"

"So? Takealookatit! Lookfamiliar?"

Lance looked. The front-page story was FROG BABY BORN IN KANSAS.

Frog baby?

"Guess who's got a little brother?" Pietro snickered. 

"Toad will kill us if he sees this," Lance said, and then burst out laughing.

"So who's going to show it to him?"

"Excuse me, are you in line?" a woman behind them asked.

"No, go ahead."

The woman walked past into the checkout lane.

"Let's buy this," Pietro said. "He needs some cheering up."

Back at the house, Toad was feeling really down, mostly because he'd been stuck in the house all day. He wasn't fond of having to stay put for a long time, especially having to stay in bed. "They would go off and leave me alone to die," he moaned to nobody (Fred was in the TV room with the sound turned way up). "I hate this, yo!"

He'd been sent home from school after coming down with stomach flu. He still had a bit of a fever, but at least he wasn't throwing up as much. Well, it had gotten him out of school, anyway.

The problem was that he had already watched all his videos and listened to every CD in the house (including some that weren't his, but hey, he'd put them back eventually), and there was nothing else to do.

"I'm **bored**!" he moaned. "I wish I had a phone in my room. Then I could call someone. But Mystique said I'm supposed to stay in bed. Wish they'd get back soon. I **hate** being alone when I'm sick!"

He heard the front door open and immediately sat up. "Yay! Someone's home!" He bounced up and down on his bed until it made him dizzy. "Whoa! The room's spinning around!" His head swimming, he flopped back onto the bed. "Guess I'll lie down for a bit . . ."

Fred came up the stairs. "Todd?"

"Yeah?"

"You dead?" This was Freddy's idea of checking on Todd.

"Yeah," Todd groaned. "I'm dead, Freddy. Who just came home?"

"I think it was Lance and Pietro. They went food shopping. I hope they remembered the Twinkies."

"Twinkies." The mere mention of food was making Todd feel nauseous again.

"You need anything?"

"Nah. I'm okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay then. Let me know if you do."

Todd rolled over and tried not to die. "Oooooh . . . I think I'm gonna blow chunks again." He was not in good spirits at the moment, and things were getting worse by the minute.

As if things couldn't get much grosser, Todd threw up again, just barely missing Lance, who had just come in the door.

"Whoa! Watch where you spew, Toddy! You almost slimed me!"

"Sorry." Todd started to get up. "I'll clean it up."

"No, you're supposed to stay put. I'll get the mop and bucket and do it myself." He went back downstairs and came back a few moments later with said mop and bucket, and started the cleanup.

"Where **were** you guys, anyway?" Todd asked.

"Grocery store."

"Oh." That explained everything. "Did you get any ice cream?"

"No. Why?"

"But I put it on the list!"

"Oh, so that was **your** lousy handwriting?" Lance said.

"It's not that bad! Maybe if you learned how to read . . ."

Pietro came in. "Hey, Toddy. Just take it easy, huh? Here, we got you some ginger ale."

"Cool." He opened one and took a sip. "Hey, it's warm!"

"It is? But I thought Fred got ice last time!"

Fred looked sheepish. "I kind of ate it.

"You ate **ice**?" Todd blurted.

"Well, there wasn't anything else in the house! I was hungry!"

"You're always hungry!"

"Oh, wait! I forgot your surprise!" Pietro said, reaching into a plastic bag.

"Surprise?"

"We got something to cheer you up," Lance answered. "Since you're so sick, we got a paper for you to read in bed, so you won't get bored." He handed Todd the _Weekly World News_ with the frog baby on the cover. "Look . . . it's your baby brother!"

"**What?**"

"Look! Isn't he cute?"

"Give me that!" Todd grabbed the paper away and glared indignantly at the "frog baby" picture. "That is **not** my baby brother!"

"How do you know?" Pietro teased him. "You don't even know who your real dad is!"

"I do too!" Todd insisted. "I just don't know **where** he is."

"How do you know that **isn't **your baby brother?" Pietro snatched the paper away and held it out of Todd's reach.

Todd was furious at this. "Give that back!"

"Come and get it!"

"I will!" He jumped off the bed, grabbing for the paper in midair, but Pietro moved away and Todd landed on the floor.

"Too slow, Toddy!"

"Come back here!"

"I'm gonna show this to the neighbors!"

"Don't you **dare**!"

"I'll post it on my website!"

"You have a website?" Todd asked.

"Yeah, I set it up last month. WWW.Pietrorules.com, all about wonderful me!" (A/N: this is not a real website.)

Lance snickered at this, prompting Pietro to give him a dirty look. "What? You don't even **have** a website, do you?"

"No, cause I don't have a massive ego problem."

"I do **not**—"

While he was distracted, Todd snatched the paper away. He looked down at it again. "Baby brother," he snorted. "**Real** funny." He tried to crumple it up, but the paper was too thick. So he took a lighter from the kitchen counter and prepared to set the thing on fire.

"Hey! Little boys shouldn't play with fire!" said Pietro. "You might get hurt." Taking the paper, he added, "Or hurt your baby brother. Poor baby brother!"

Pietro didn't have a chance to say anything else, because Toad launched himself at the speedster and grabbed him by the throat.

"Hey! Let go of—urrrrk!"

**"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?"** Mystique shouted. She had just come in from her meeting, and it had **not** gone well. In fact, it had been the worst parent/teacher conference she'd ever had.

Pietro wriggled out of Todd's grasp and showed her the paper. "Look, it's Toad's baby brother!"

"I thought I told you not to bring this trash into the house," she snapped. "You know how I feel about—" Then she saw the picture. It was all she could do not to burst out laughing.

She turned to Toad and said, "I thought you were supposed to stay in bed."

"I **was** in bed," he said, "till these jerks decided to start harassing me."

"OK, what exactly did you do to him?"

Lance and Pietro tried to look innocent. They failed miserably.

"**What **did you **do**?"

"We just wanted him to see his baby brother, Mystique! And he goes psycho on us!"

**"THAT–IS-NOT-MY-BABY-BROTHER!"** Toad screamed. **"HE-DOES-NOT-LOOK-ANYTHING-LIKE-ME!"**

Mystique winced at the volume of Todd's voice. "You can make your point without screaming at the top of your lungs, you know."

There were snickers from behind her. She pretended not to hear them.

"They won't listen to me!" Todd protested. "I tell them he's not my brother, but they keep insisting he is! Look! He looks nothing like me!"

Mystique studied the photo like it was evidence of a crime. "Well . . ."

"Well what? He doesn't! Besides, that's not even a real baby! How do you know that's a real kid? They don't even use real pictures, just drawings!"

He had a point. Mystique wadded up the paper and threw it in the trash. "Leave him alone," she said to the other boys. "And if you ever bring that rag into this house again, you'll be grounded for—"

The doorbell rang suddenly. "Whoever it is," she said, "tell them to go away."

"I'll get it!" Pietro rushed to the door. Mystique waited, then, when she was sure nobody was looking, she fished the tabloid out of the trash and looked at it again. "Frog Baby," she snorted. "Yeah, right." Then she started laughing as if it were the funniest thing she'd ever heard.

She didn't laugh long. The sound of an infant's cry drew her attention, especially since there were no small children in the neighborhood. "What's that noise?"

Pietro came back carrying a bundle in his arms. "That would be this little guy."

Toad pulled back the blanket to get a better look. It was a baby, all right. Cute little fella, too. He started to move in to get a closer look, but Pietro held him back. 

"No! Don't get too close to him!"

"Why not?"

"Cause you're still sick! Little babies are very susceptible to germs."

"Oh?" Lance said. "What makes you the big baby expert?"

"Hey, I read magazines! I watch talk shows!" He gently placed the baby down on the couch, fencing him in with pillows and the coffee table so he wouldn't fall off.

"How do you know it's a he, anyway?" Fred asked.

"It's in the note," Pietro explained.

"Note?"

"Yeah. Here, Toddy, it's addressed to you." He handed the note over, and Todd read it.

"'Dear Todd, please look after your baby brother. Signed, Your Dad.'" He looked up. "This has to be a joke."

Mystique looked down at the infant currently wriggling around on their couch. Then she looked at the _Weekly World News_ cover. Then back at the baby. Then she let out an annoyed sigh.

"I'm going to bed."

"Wait!" Todd lifted the baby off the couch and held him up in front of Mystique. "Kiss Auntie good night, baby."

"Get him away from me!"

"But he's so cuuuuute!" 

"Put that thing down! You don't know where it's been!"

"Actually, we do," Pietro said, turning the note over. "There's a name and address on here."

"Oh, man," Lance added. "Only your dad would be stupid enough to write a 'dump-the-kid' note on the back of his electric bill."

"You're just jealous cause you didn't even **get** a note," Todd said.

**"ALL RIGHT!" **Mystique screamed. "The baby goes back in the morning! I'm going to my room, and I don't want to hear a peep out of any of you till then!" She stomped out of the room and up the stairs. 

On her way, she flushed the _Weekly World News _down the toilet, where, in her opinion, it belonged.


End file.
